


Collected Prompt Fics

by enigma731



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: F/M, Gen
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-09-27
Updated: 2016-11-01
Packaged: 2017-12-27 18:23:15
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 13
Words: 6,150
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/982144
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/enigma731/pseuds/enigma731
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Odds and ends from tumblr.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

“Just one more stop,” says Clint, pausing to duck into a store front decorated with twinkle lights and kitschy cardboard stand-up palm trees.

“Wait, seriously? We’re done here. We can go to the airport.” The entire boardwalk area smells of saltwater, stale popcorn, and sticky melted ice cream. The yellow sundress Natasha’s been wearing for this mission feels like it’s adhered itself to her skin, and currently all she wants to do is return to the land of air conditioning and sane people. Because anyone who would vacation in a place this tacky is clearly mentally defective, she’s decided.

“In a minute,” Clint answers, shrugging off her protest as he makes a beeline for something at the back of the store. For a moment she simply watches him, thinking that there’s no way the purple Hawaiian print shirt he’s wearing should look as good as it does stretched across the plane of his shoulders.

“What could possibly be so important that you have to spend more time here?” she asks when she catches up.

“What, more time in paradise?” Clint asks, and she knows that his smile isn’t because he actually has a taste for overpriced tourist traps, but because he knows he’s pushing her buttons. “And, taffy.”

She studies the display in front of them as he gestures grandly. It’s a setup of three wooden barrels, filled to the brim with candies wrapped in wax paper twists. Some of the colors are so bright and garish that they look like they must be made out of clay.

“You can’t get it just anywhere,” says Clint, gesturing to a sign that proclaims World Famous Hand Made Saltwater Taffy. “Gotta stock up while I can.”

She’s about to ask him how gullible he is, whether he seriously thinks this stuff was made anywhere other than a giant commercial factory, when he begins grabbing handfuls of the taffy and piling it onto the measuring scale next to the display. He looks so excited about it that she wonders how many other times he’s taken a post-mission detour to do this when the location was right.

Natasha picks up a piece of candy from the barrel and reads the wrapper. “Blueberry muffin? Seriously? If you want something that tastes like a blueberry muffin why wouldn’t you eat, you know,  _a muffin_?”

“Hey.” Clint pauses in the midst of shoveling candy from the scale into a paper bag, and looks offended on behalf of the taffy. “Practicality is not the point, okay?” The way he’s pouting makes him look about twelve, and suddenly she’s having a hard time not laughing.

“Fine, then what  _is_  the point of taffy? Enlighten me, please.”

“The  _point_  is to enjoy it.” He plucks a piece from a bin marked ‘samples’ and hands it to her. “Try it. Tell me it isn’t delicious fun.”

This piece of taffy is candy corn flavored. Natasha stares at it for a moment, wrinkling her nose in distaste, then throws it at Clint as he turns to head for the register. It hits him square in the back of the head, and the look of shock on his face when he spins around is enough to make her giggle in a manner that is thankfully completely appropriate for her dippy-tourist cover.

“You’re right,” says Natasha. “It  _is_  fun.”

He tastes of lemon sugar when she kisses him later, and she decides that his soft spot for novelty candy might be something she can live with.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Prompt: Natasha and Clint celebrate an anniversary, but not the one everybody would think.

Clint is never the same again after New York. Not really.

He doesn’t talk about it, doesn’t go off the rails or lose his skills in the field. But Natasha knows, because he doesn’t protest the mandatory therapy sessions, doesn’t complain when he gets stuck on desk duty for three months. She knows because he does all of her paperwork, and he develops the habit of waiting for her direction when they’re in bed.

She thinks, at first, that it will fade, like so many of the scars she’s seen him earn in the year fighting beside her. Eventually he’ll learn to relegate it to the background, return to his easy humor and his casual disregard for authority. (If she examined those beliefs a little deeper, she’d know immediately that they are wishful thinking. But Natasha learned a long time ago that the depths of her mind are better left unexplored.)

She tells him, repeatedly, not to go looking for the detailed casualty reports, not to dwell on the people Loki’s killed using his body. She doesn’t think he’ll listen for even a second.

He writes the names down in a little leather-bound book which he keeps hidden inside their mattress. Natasha says nothing for a while, lets him continue pretending she doesn’t know.

When the first year passes, he locks himself in their bedroom and does the math: lives saved against the ones he took. He does it again when the second year passes, and then the third.

"You have to stop doing this to yourself," Natasha says on the fourth anniversary, taking the book out of his hands and catching his face between her palms. 

Clint pulls her down to the bed, kisses her like he’s drowning. “How much longer?” he asks breathlessly. “When does it go away?”

"Give it time." Natasha flips him onto his back, fucks him into the mattress until he doesn’t look so desperately lost.

She doesn’t tell him that none of the good he does will ever be enough, that he will never feel this debt has been paid.

 


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Prompt: Natasha knows one of them is fake, and one is her Clint. She just doesn't know how to tell them apart.

Under any other circumstances she’d probably be alarmed.

Today, looking at the two men lounging on the overly plush couch in the Tower, the only emotion Natasha can summon is profound annoyance.

"Great," she sighs. "This is the urgent thing you called me here to see? I had plans this afternoon. Plans that involved hitting things in the gym."

Two perfect copies of Clint Barton are smirking back at her, complete with ridiculous sunglasses on inside of the house. One of them is probably the real Clint, she thinks, because she knows he was planning on spending his day off here, though it’s possible both could be a ploy.

"Consider it a training exercise," says the Clint on the right. "Bet you can’t tell us apart."

"I could just kill you both," says Natasha.

Both men laugh.

"You wouldn’t," says the man on the left. "So you’ve gotta play the game, Nat."

This is about more than their appearance, thinks Natasha. It’s about tells, finding a weakness, and about how quickly she can beat their challenge.

"Okay," she says slowly. "Then I want to see you both shoot."

"Sorry," says left-Clint. "Left my bow at your place."

Right-Clint grins “Me too.”

Natasha crosses her arms, beginning to reconsider the killing plan. “Okay. Then both of you get in the bedroom. Now.”

"Okay," right-Clint parrots immediately, smile turning wolfish as he gets to his feet. 

"Oh hell no!" left-Clint yelps, jumping up as well. "You—you win. Tony?"

The man on Natasha’s right laughs and presses a button hidden under his collar. The Clint disguise dissolves immediately, revealing Tony in the latest incarnation of the Iron Man suit.

"What do you think?" he asks. "Newest upgrade includes handy dandy camo tech. Suggested by a friend of mine."

Natasha rolls her eyes. “I think I’m still going to kill you both.”


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Prompt: Sometimes Clint worries that Natasha is only with him because she thinks she owes him a debt.

Clint doesn’t think about it in the thick of a mission, or even during the hours he spends in stillness waiting for a signal, waiting for their mark. He doesn’t think about it afterward, when Natasha strips off his suit and fucks him until he forgets about the blood they’ve spilled in the name of justice, the leather of his arm guards chafing her skin raw.

The familiar doubts creep in later, with the shadows at the corners of the room as the sun drops lower in the sky and Natasha curls into his side, her head resting on his shoulder, her breath a hot ghost against his neck.

"I love you, you know," she murmurs into the space between his heartbeats, almost too quiet to hear.

He thinks, sometimes, that he ought to ask her whether the past two years are marked on the ledger in her mind, whether love is her idea of a payment, his greatest need in exchange for her life. He thinks he ought to ask her whether she knows she has a choice.

He never does, though.

Instead he rests his hand over her heart, curls his fingers into her hair. If this is a lie, a pretty illusion created out of her sense of duty, Clint thinks he never wants to know the truth.


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Prompt: Halloween -- Natasha meets a tiny Black Widow.

"So," says Tony, reaching up to make tic marks on the large touchscreen currently configured to look like a conventional whiteboard. "That’s—five for Thor, twelve for Bird Brain, nineteen for Cap, twenty for me—Ha! Imagine that. And…" He pauses, frowning a little. "Twenty-five for Bruce. Wow. The Jolly Green Giant appears to be cleaning up with the kiddies."

"Great," says Bruce, through a mouthful of chocolate, sounding like he means exactly the opposite.

"What about Natasha?" asks Clint, and she starts at the sound of her name, looking up from her place by the door she’s just closed. It’ll only be a few minutes before the next round of trick-or-treaters shows up, she thinks, and that’s if they get lucky. 

"None so far," says Tony, "which probably has something to do with the fact that you didn’t authorize an official Halloween costume design, Nat. Do we need to talk business sense again, by the way? Money is a  _good_  thing.”

"Actually," Natasha says quietly, "one. Just now." The little girl’s image is burned into her memory, black leotard and red-painted belt buckle, messily-stenciled S.H.I.E.L.D. crest on the shoulder and eyes full of impossible wonder as she collected her candy prize straight from the Tower.

"Somehow you don’t sound very excited about that," says Steve, somehow right beside her. "Don’t tell me Tony’s popularity contest is getting you down."

Natasha runs a hand through her hair, shaking off the surprise at his sudden proximity. “It’s not about popularity. I am the last person that little girls should be idolizing.”

"Ah," says Steve, and gives her a look that says he disagrees but is too polite to say anything yet. 

Natasha sighs. “I wasn’t much older than that little girl when my training started. It is not a thing anyone should glorify.”

"Natasha," Steve says quietly, resting his hand on her arm. "This is not about your past. This is about the fact that six months ago, that little girl watched you save the world.  _Despite_  where you came from. Don’t you think these kids need that however they can get it? Don’t you think the world does?”

There’s something about his sincerity that’s irresistible, even to her, that makes his words meaningful instead of just trite. 

"You mean like they need a walking history exhibit?" she teases, and Steve grins.

"Something like that."


	6. Chapter 6

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Prompt: Clint/Natasha, blindfolds.

It’s Natasha’s idea, the first time.

When she reaches for the scarf, Clint is expecting her to tie him up, even gets as far as raising his hands over his head, reaching for the bedframe.

Natasha laughs. “Wait. Not so fast.”

"What?" Clint sputters, because she’s naked above him and he’s already running low on functional brain cells.

She wraps the scarf around her head, holding the ends in two long fingers as she pulls his hand to where she wants it. “Tie it.”

Clint freezes, filled with equal parts excitement and uncertainty. Natasha is all power, the deadliest weapon he’s ever known, and the idea of having her at his mercy makes his head swim.

"Are you sure?" He swallows, his throat dry. It’s been six months and the fact that she wants him at all still feels like a miracle, feels like the sort of gift he doesn’t deserve.

"Yes," says Natasha, her fingers tightening a little against his wrist. "I mean, I owe you, right? You never did let me repay that debt."

Clint pulls his hands away abruptly, panic overtaking the desire in the pit of his stomach, the constant fear that everything between them might simply unravel. He grabs the scarf and balls it in a fist, sitting up. “No.”

Natasha sits back on her heels, looking flushed, and Clint can’t tell whether it’s lust or anger or her patented mixture of both. “Come on. I know you want to do it. Why won’t you let me give you this?”

"Because I don’t want this to be about  _repayment_ ,” Clint spits. “I want this to be about what  _you_  want.”

"And that can’t include  _wanting_  to please you?” she shoots back bitterly.

"Not until I know it’s more than  _just_  that,” says Clint, getting up and retrieving his pants from the floor. “Not until I’m  _sure_.”

"Okay," says Natasha, unmoving on the bed, her eyes boring into his back as he turns to leave. "I can wait."

She isn’t angry anymore, he can feel it in the air between them. He thinks it would be easier, in a way, if she was.


	7. Chapter 7

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Assorted Halloween drabbles from Livejournal.

I.

Clint wakes to the sound of sleet hitting the windows, light but hard, like a rapid tapping of nails against the glass. His head is pounding, his heart in his throat, and it takes him a breathless moment to realize where he is. The darkness makes him feel like he might still be underground in Loki’s bunker, the vice grip of the dream that’s awakened him tight around his heart, and he sits up in a rush, fumbling for a moment before finding the lamp.   
  
The moment after he finally gets it switched on, Clint registers that he's in Natasha's apartment, in her bed, like he always is lately when the dreams come. Six months have passed since Loki took him, since the aliens, but the nightmares have made a resurgence since the weather turned, since he started being haunted by the cold.   
  
"Breathe," Natasha says softly. She's been sitting up beside him since he first woke up, possibly even longer, but she's waited to speak until he was present enough to hear her, to do anything other than react reflexively in fear. It's become their routine.  
  
Clint listens to her, takes a huge, shuddering breath he never realizes he's holding until her gentle reminders. It feels as though the world comes rushing back, then, the warmth of her body at the softness of her sheets tangled around his legs.  
  
"Fuck," he sighs, leaning back as she wraps her arms around him. "The instant replay's getting fucking old. Couldn't it at least be a different awful dream?" The attempt at humor falls flat, but he can tell by her soft exhalation that she appreciates the effort.  
  
"Maybe next time," says Natasha, in such a perfect deadpan that he actually does laugh, a sound that turns into a helpless groan as she pulls his head to her shoulder.  
  
Clint turns his face into the crook of her neck and waits for the rush of terror to fade. He hasn't apologized for waking her since the third night, when she'd threatened him with pain if he did it again.  
  
He doesn't think he'll ever let go of the guilt, though, or of how very much he owes her.

 

II.

"I don't get it." Steve gives a long-suffering sigh as he looks down the chaotic and crowded aisles of Party City. Even in lowkey jeans and a t-shirt, he sticks out like a sore thumb. The kids here seem miraculously distracted by the array of costumes and makeup, though, and so far no one seems to have noticed that Captain America is among them.  
  
"What's to understand?" asks Natasha, carefully sidestepping as an over-excited little girl nearly collides with her legs. "You get a costume. You wear it to the party. Everybody has a good time."  
  
Steve shrugs helplessly. "It's just--different."  _Than what I knew before_ , says his expression.   
  
Natasha rolls her eyes and resists the urge to comment on how radically different S.H.I.E.L.D.'s traditions are from anything _she_  knew prior to the past few years. "You had Halloween before."  
  
"Yeah," says Steve, and sweeps a hand around the store. "But it wasn't like this. It wasn't  _commercial._ " He says it like a dirty word.   
  
"Maybe give it a try first," says Natasha, patiently, though the raucous sounds and bustle around them are beginning to grate on her nerves. "Decide if you hate it after."  
  
He considers for a moment. "I guess that's fair. So what's your master plan for my costume?"  
  
She keeps her face carefully impassive as she hands him a dark cloak and an eye patch. "You're a pirate. It's fitting, right _Captain_  Rogers?"  
  
Steve smiles, looking so pleased she almost feels guilty. Natasha watches him get in line at the register and wonders how long before he realizes he's actually dressing as Nick Fury.

III.

"No way," comes Tony Stark's voice, distinctive over the din in the conference room that's been converted into a party space for Halloween. Clint can't see him yet, but he's pretty sure he knows what's going on.   
  
Natasha does too, judging by the way her left eyebrow arches ever so slightly as they approach the entry doors. He chooses not to comment on the special brand of masochism that is her decision to dress as a ballerina, because he's getting way too much enjoyment out of looking at the lines of her body in an emerald green leotard, the little red curls that have escaped her bun at the nap of her neck. He wants badly to kiss her there, but the impulse will keep for later.  
  
"No  _way_ ," Tony repeats, as Clint pushes through the doors and he comes into view. He's looking incredulously at Bruce, whose trench coat and eye patch are nearly identical to his own. Tony's version looks a little more expensive--like everything he does--but the idea is clearly the same.  
  
Clint grins as he pushes through the crowd and comes to rest beside the other two men, waiting for them to take in his own matching costume.   
  
"I know," he says, pitching his voice high in mock horror. "How embarrassing. I thought this design was exclusive."  
  
"You," says Tony, in a tone that might be threatening if it wasn't so damned hilarious. "How did you get Dr. Science to play along?"  
  
Bruce shrugs, looking sheepish. "Said it was the scariest thing he could think of. I might have wanted something scarier than, you know, me."  
  
Clint starts to respond to that, but he's interrupted by Steve's arrival.  
  
"So," he says, moving to stand next to Clint, "not pirates, then. I suspected."  
  
"But you listened to Nat anyway?" Clint's grin widens even more. "Smart man."  
  
Steve shrugs. "I trust her. But--may I ask why you wanted us all dressed as Director Fury?"  
  
"For laughs?" says Clint, who really doesn't need anything more than Tony's indignant look in terms of payoff. "Also, blackmail."  
  
He gestures to where Natasha is standing a few feet away, with a thrilled Maria Hill cradling a camera in her hand.  
  
The sex will be extra amazing tonight, he thinks.

 

IV.

"I still don't understand this tradition," says Natasha, from where she's seated cross-legged on the floor, newspaper and pumpkin guts strewn out in front of her.  
  
"What?" asks Clint, because he can't see what she's reacting to. He pokes his head out of the kitchen, where he's been icing cookies, an indulgent habit that's come with the wonder of being able to afford as much superfluous food as he damn well wants. It's been years, of course, but he's not sure the novelty will ever wear off.  
  
"Carving pumpkins?" he prompts, when she doesn't say anything. He's pretty sure it's not really that, after two years of watching her dig out orange guts and carve breathtakingly intricate patterns with one of her obscenely sharp knives.  
  
"No." She cocks her head toward the television, where a news anchor is reporting on the year's trick-or-treating underway in a neighborhood nearby. "If you were a parent, why would you send your child out to get candy from strangers? Doesn't that seem like asking for trouble?" She looks deceptively young in jeans and a sweatshirt she stole from his drawer, her hands a mess and her hair wild.   
  
"If I was a parent, I'd probably forget to feed and walk the kids." He meets her eyes carefully, trying to read what he's really seeing in their depths. "It's called trust, Nat. I hear other people get to have that sometimes."  
  
"Right," she says, and the open bitterness in her voice surprises him. "Other people got to be children, too."  
  
He holds her gaze for a long moment, surprised by the sadness she's not quite voicing. She looks away after a few breaths, wipes her hands on a rag and runs her finger along the flat of the knife and goes back to carving, signifying the end of the conversation.   
  
Clint files away this information, decides that now he wants to see her smile.   
  
"Eat a cookie, Nat," he says, and tosses her a ghost, watching her examine it before precisely biting off its head.

 

V.

"Seriously?" Natasha asks from the doorway as she listens to the lock click shut, the security system re-arming itself.   
  
She hasn't been home in nearly three weeks, is just coming off a deep cover mission, and she can't deny the secret relief she feels in finding him watching a made-for-TV horror movie. She'd thought he might have given up that habit after fighting real monsters, but the fact that he hasn't tells her he's doing okay.  
  
"Yes," says Clint, without looking away from the screen. It's part of their game, pretending that this is nothing remarkable, that they haven't both spent the past few weeks wondering whether they'll ever see each other alive again.   
  
Natasha kicks off her boots and moves to stand in the middle of the room, not quite in his reach yet. "what's this one about?"  
  
On the screen, a monster that appears to be made of rotting sludge is killing a car full of partly unclothed teenagers.  
  
"A scarecrow," says Clint, sneaking a look her direction that she doesn't miss. "Did you know that's what they looked like, apparently? Oh yeah, and this one feeds on the blood of horny teenagers."  
  
"Well, guess it won't be tempted to pilfer the corn, then," she deadpans, then wrinkles her nose at the dismembered bodies in the show. "Why would you stop for sex  _there_? There's no cover whatsoever. And did they know there was a monster on the loose?"  
  
"You're doing the thing again, Nat," Clint groans. "The one with the logic."  
  
"You love my logic," says Natasha, moving to stand between him and the movie.  
  
"I do not," he insists, but then his hands are on her hips, pulling her down and kissing her like it's salvation. "Fuck," he breathes, "I  _missed_  you."  
  
"Bedroom," says Natasha, running her hand up his thigh. "We are  _not_  fucking with that in the background."


	8. Chapter 8

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Prompt: Drunk Clint.

The first time Natasha sees Clint get drunk is at Stark’s celebration for saving the world from the aliens (and also christening the newly-rebuilt Avengers Tower.) Never, in the five years she’s known him, has she seen him knock back beers the way he’s doing tonight, but she doesn’t say anything about it, just figures she can trust him to know what he needs like always.

Her irritation sets in when they get to the car and he starts fiddling with the radio, singing along. Normally she wouldn’t mind; he’s got a decent enough voice and he can carry a tune, but for some reason tonight he’s fixated on a pop station, and he’s mangling at least half the words.

"Tower’s great, though," he says, apparently to fill the silence as she helps him up the stairs to his apartment, cursing the fact that his building doesn’t have an elevator. “‘specially the robots. Did you see the robots? There’s a bar robot. And a trash robot. And a toilet-flushing robot. When d’you wanna move in?"

"Never," says Natasha, and deposits him on the couch. She fishes around in his kitchen for a few minutes before coming back with a glass of water and a couple of ibuprofen. He’s going to regret this in the morning, she thinks, but at least he hasn’t done any serious damage. 

"Thanks, pill-bot," he says, gulping down the meds and the water with a huge grin.

Natasha rolls her eyes. “Good night.”

She’s already facing the door when his hand catches her sleeve, surprising her. It isn’t a gesture he would ever make otherwise, without the alcohol to dull his inhibitions. It still gets her attention, though, and she turns, surprised to see that the giddy energy’s gone out of his face, his eyes suddenly dark and hard to read. 

"Stay?" he asks, his fingers tightening a little on the fabric of her jacket. 

She ought to shut him down on instinct, but there’s something that stops her, something in the space between them that suddenly doesn’t seem so far. 

"Fine," says Natasha. "But I might kill you for it in the morning."

"Okay," he agrees, grinning happily as she sits.

He falls asleep with his head in her lap and his hand curled gently around her knee. Listening as his breathing slows, she thinks she doesn’t mind being here so much at all.


	9. Chapter 9

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Prompt: Clint/Natasha — santa hats.

"That," said Tony, jabbing an index finger toward the red and white abomination in Clint’s hand. " _That_  is our culprit?”

"Yep," Clint answered, holding the hat so that it dangled between two fingers, like it might be a rat he’d caught by the tail. As Santa hats went, this one looked pretty innocent. It had glitter and fake snow mixed in with the fur around the brim. It was even fluffy. It also happened to be the centerpiece of AIM’s latest scheme to take down the corporate world. 

"Mind control," said Tony, like he still couldn’t believe it. "In a Santa hat?"

"Yes." Natasha took the hat from Clint and turned it inside out to show the two tiny electrodes she’d found inside the lining. "There was also a microinjector. Lab tests will confirm, but we think they may have been lacing his bloodstream with nanobots."

Tony snatched up the hat and stared at the tech for a moment. “Huh. Ingenious.”

"Remember," said Natasha, narrowing her eyes at him, "I know where all your soft spots are. I could hurt you very much if you get any ideas."

"We’ll need to call Fury," Clint interrupted, stepping between the two of them. "And Steve and Bruce. We’re gonna need a bigger team. An army of mall Santas could do a lot of damage this time of year."


	10. Chapter 10

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Prompt: “I’m sorry, babe. Scaring you seemed like a funny idea at the time. Let me make it up to you?”

“This is going to be fun to explain to Coulson,” says Natasha, wincing as she presses a bag of ice to the knot that’s emerged on her left ankle, a bruise rapidly purpling beneath it. “‘Sorry, sir, but I’m going to be out of the field for a couple weeks. No, it didn’t happen on an op. No, I didn’t get hurt training, either. Oh, how did it happen? I slipped on a screaming Halloween doormat that _somebody_ thought would make a hilarious prank.”

Clint grimaces, holding a bottle of ibuprofen out at arm’s length, a cautious peace offering. “I’m sorry. I thought–I thought it would scream at you. Maybe startle you if I got lucky. I didn’t know that it was going to slide when you stepped on it.”

“Did you test it?” asks Natasha, grabbing the painkillers and dry-swallowing four of them. “Did you spare five minutes to think about how a plastic mat was going to work on a wood floor?”

He sighs, looks down at his feet. “No. You’re the most graceful person I know, Nat. I didn’t think you’d be done in by a Halloween decoration.”

She sighs, unable to stay angry while watching his chagrin. Besides, this is hardly the worst injury she’s ever had, and she’s probably going to enjoy milking it for all its worth in certain regards. “So you were saying–you’re sorry?”

“Yes,” he says quickly, his eyes darting back up to her face again. “Sorry. Really sorry.”

Natasha smiles, gingerly removing the ice and setting it to the side. “Show me, then.”

He exhales, catching on just half a beat slower than he might have if this whole thing weren’t his own damn fault. He takes two steps closer and kneels beside her, leaning in to kiss the side of her neck, lingering on the sensitive spot just below her left ear. “I’m sorry.”

“What was that?” asks Natasha, tipping her head to the side to give him better access. “I didn’t hear you.”

“I’m sorry,” he says again, shifting closer, one hand creeping down the neck of her shirt, fingers tracing a soft line over the top of her breast.

“How sorry?” she presses, leaning into his touch.

“So sorry,” says Clint, shifting to slip one arm under her knees, the other around her shoulders. “So sorry that I think I need to put you to bed and make it all better.”

“Okay,” she whispers, catching his earlobe in her teeth and feeling a full-body shudder run through him.


	11. Chapter 11

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Prompt: “I’ve never seen a sexier costume in my life. Keep it on.”

“Wow,” comes Natasha’s voice, as Clint slips through the door of tonight’s appointed safehouse, which happens to be a studio apartment scarcely bigger than a glorified closet.

He shuts the door behind him, keys in the access code to lock it again, and waits for his eyes to adjust to the low light in the room. Natasha is seated in the corner of the threadbare couch, her feet tucked up under her and an afghan over her shoulders, as though she’s just spent the evening relaxing, not doing the delicate hacking that’s allowed him to get the information currently on a thumb drive in his pocket.

She looks up at him, smiling. “You got it, didn’t you? I saw the download go through.”

“I got it,” he agrees. The adrenaline of the job is still coursing through him, making it hard to stay still. He crosses the room, plugs the drive into the slot he knows connects to S.H.I.E.L.D.’s remote network, then starts to shrug out of the white coat he’s still wearing.

“Wait.” Clint hasn’t heard her move, but suddenly she’s so close that her breath brushes the back of his neck.

He hides his surprise in a smooth turn to face her. “Wait?”

“Wait,” she repeats, and the cadence of her voice has gone several notes lower. Natasha rests her hands on his shoulders, her chin tipped up as she meets his gaze. “Our ride doesn’t come for another four hours.”

“Yeah,” he agrees, swallowing. She’s shed the blanket, and now he can see that she isn’t wearing a bra, has either used his travel time here to change into gym shorts and a thin tank top or else has spent the entire op dressed this way, running backup for him while simultaneously making other plans. That particular image gives a whole new spin to the endorphins flooding his system. “Usually that means you want me out of my clothes.”

“I know, but I kind of like these.” Natasha grins wolfishly, tracing a finger along the embroidery that covers the pocket of his coat, the black stitching of the caduceus, then brings that same hand around to touch the cool metal of the stethoscope that hangs around his neck. “Dr. Reese. You know, I’ve never understood the supposed allure of fucking a doctor, but I think I might be open to changing my mind.”

Clint’s reaction takes him by surprise. He knows she’s teasing, that she’s playing the game that comes with his cover, that her attraction is about _him_ , not some fake uniform or forged credentials. And yet it still sends the familiar doubt rushing back, the fear that _this_ is the moment she’ll realize she deserves better than a carny who dropped out of high school, who shoots things with a string and a stick and acts like that’s some sort of legitimate skill. Maybe this is the moment she’ll realize that she’d rather have the cover than the man underneath.

“Okay,” he agrees, swallowing again. “We can do that if you want.”

Natasha studies his response, doesn’t miss the change in him, because reading people is what she does, and he’s her favorite subject. She moves in a rush, taking the stethoscope and tossing it onto the bed before moving to push the coat off his shoulders, to get her hands up under the hem of his scrub top.

“No,” she says firmly, leaning in and kissing him breathless before even finishing her sentence. “On second thought, no. I just want you.”


	12. Chapter 12

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Prompt: “I promised a reward if you did a couple’s costume with me this year. Well, I’m ready to pay up.”

“This is horrible,” says Clint, falling back onto the bed dramatically as Natasha walks him toward it. “Horrible. Get it off me immediately.”

Natasha laughs, straddling his hips and immediately going for the zipper that’s currently pulled up to the vicinity of his chin. “Come on, it’s not that bad. You’re not even wearing the heels.”

“Maybe on you it’s not,” he insists, sitting up as she unzips his catsuit, the comically thin spandex contracting immediately as he shrugs out of the sleeves, rolls the thing down until it snags on the belt, which he’s forgotten to unfasten.

“Well,” Natasha allows, leaning in to kiss him roughly as her fingers go to the belt, undoing the flimsy snap concealed behind the hourglass buckle, “my tac suits also don’t come from Party City.”

“Which is good,” says Clint, his hips jumping as she palms his cock through the costume, wicked as ever, as she’s been throughout this whole charade. “Because there’s nothing tactical about this suit. Might as well be wearing fucking shrink wrap.”

“True,” she agrees. “But you’ve gotta admit, red hair kind of suits you.” She reaches out a hand to run her fingers through the locks of his wig, a Kool-Aid colored parody of her own hair.

“No it doesn’t,” he grumbles, deciding he’s had enough of her teasing. He rolls them over in one smooth movement, Natasha going with him enthusiastically.

“Admit it,” she purrs, as he goes to work on her costume, “wearing each other’s clothes is totally a turn-on for you.”

“Only thing I’ll admit,” says Clint, pulling a strap over her shoulder, “is that you might be right about my new suit. This thing has too damn many buckles.”


	13. Chapter 13

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Prompt: “The Ouija board just spelled ‘fuck’ and I think we should listen to it.”

“What’s the emergency?” asks Natasha, heart beating quickly as he opens the door. He hasn’t exactly said as much, though the urgency was plenty apparent from his text message. **  
**

“Come inside,” he answers in a hushed voice, and there’s something off about the lines of his face, his jaw clenched tightly as he steps back to usher her forward.

She crosses her arms, steps past him into the hallway. “Seriously, what is it?”

“It’s a ghost,” says Clint, his tone so perfectly sincere that for a moment she thinks she must have misheard.

She gives him a quizzical look.  “You get some kind of tip, you mean?”

“Yes,” he agrees. “A tip from beyond the grave. Come on, in the bedroom.”

She lets him steer her, is just confused and off-balance enough to go along with whatever it is that’s going on here. The bedroom is dark, lit only by a couple of candles, one of which is sitting on the floor. Taking a few steps closer, she realizes why – there’s a Ouija board set up by the side of the bed, the planchette discarded, thick black marker lines connecting the letters F-U-C-K, like someone’s turned the thing into a word search puzzle.

Natasha rests her hands on her hips, bites her lip to stop herself from laughing outright. “Clint. You know that’s not how a Ouija board works, right? It’s not connect-the-dots.”

He waggles his eyebrows at her. “Spirit voicemail?”

She snorts. “Oh, so the spirits couldn’t wait for me to get home?”

“There’s something rising from the grave,” Clint deadpans, “in my pants.”

Natasha groans helplessly. “You’re a menace.”

“A monster,” says Clint, stepping into her personal space. “Come on, the spirits have spoken. We have to obey or we’ll be cursed.”

“Then get naked, ghost hunter,” she teases, smacking his ass before bending down to pick up the candle. “If we’re having a seance, I bet I can come up with some fun things to do with this.”


End file.
